Escape from the Olympic Green

Now, in most ways (except the security!) I would say that China's Olympic preparations were very, very good, and things ran very smoothly over the last few weeks.

And the following gripe is, I acknowledge, one that could probably be levelled against any major public event anywhere in the world, and is not just a case of sniping at the Beijing Olympic Games in particular.

But...... the public transport links to the main venues, even to the Olympic Green itself, were not good. And the sign-posting around the HUGE Green area was pretty much non-existent.

After watching one of the diving finals last week, I found myself blundering around in the dark for some considerable time, trying - with mounting desperation - to locate the pedestrian exit at the south end of the Green that I had used when visiting during the day the week before. I failed to find it. Perhaps it had been moved or closed.

I did eventually find a sign to an exit; but it appeared to be pointing to one of the Entrance Security Checkpoints. These, gallingly, were not available to use for exit, even near the end of the day - when everyone was starting to leave, and no new visitors were being admitted. Dumb. Unnecessary. Annoying.

An over-eager but not terribly helpful volunteer tried to point me in the direction of the real exit, but pointed me in so many different directions (mostly back the way I'd come, towards the Water Cube) that I just got confused and pissed off.

I soon found an exit on my own; but it was not the one I had used previously, the one that would let me straight out on to the 4th Ringroad, where there was a reasonable chance that I might have been able to pick up a cab. No, this one took me on a great flyover across the 4th Ring to some of the other Olympic venues on the south side. This street, Beichen Lu, was completely closed to regular traffic for a good half a mile or more of its upper stretch. There were a few buses, but there was no indication where any of them were bound, and I couldn't be bothered to take the risk. I walked on gamely (praying that the rain would not resume), and eventually hit roads with traffic on them. Me and the other couple of hundred early leavers from the Green - so it still took me quite a while to get a cab.

The whole ordeal took me 75 or 80 minutes. In 'normal' circumstances, I could probably have completed my journey entirely on foot in that time.

I heard many other similar stories of complaint over the two weeks of the Games. Entry and exit was not that easy, even when you were trying to achieve this (as I always was) at extremely non-busy times. Access in general was none too great.

I did in fact get the chance to pick up a ticket for the Bird's Nest for the following evening - but after the hassles of getting to and from the venue on this occasion, I decided I'd be happier just watching on TV, and passed on it (also, as it happens, I was more interested in watching the Brazil v Belgium bronze medal play-off in the football that night - although bloody CCTV, of course, didn't show it!).